This invention relates to a copying machine, a printer, a fax machine, and a scanner, or a composite machine of these (hereinafter referred to as an image forming apparatus).
In recent years, it has been known a system to enable remote operation of an image forming apparatus from a remote operation apparatus using a personal computer or the like through a network (refer to the patent literatures 1 to 3 for example).
In such an image forming apparatus, on the basis of various kinds of request for processing inputted from the operational section provided in the image forming apparatus itself or a remote operation apparatus, various kinds of job such as an image formation job is practiced. An image formation job is defined by means of a job control language in an image forming apparatus, and is registered in a job queue. The registered image formation job is practiced in accordance with the priority order such as the order of request for image formation in the image formation job inputted from a remote operation apparatus, for example.
An image formation job contains image data of the object of output and a job ticket specifying the output conditions. A job ticket is data specifying the output conditions of image data, and to be concrete, it specifies whether printing is to be done in duplex or simplex, the selection of paper to be used, the magnification, the number of copies, etc. Until an image formation job is carried out, by the edition of this job ticket, it is possible to change the output conditions of image data.
[Patent Literature 1]
The publication of unexamined patent application 2000-357072.
[Patent Literature 2]
The publication of unexamined patent application 2002-281195.
[Patent Literature 3]
The publication of unexamined patent application 2001-306204.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional system (patent literatures 1 to 3), it has been impossible to edit a job ticket controlled in an image forming apparatus by means of a remote operation apparatus. For this reason, in cases where an output condition is changed, a user has to move to a place where the image forming apparatus is installed to carry out the edition of the job ticket by the operation section provided in the apparatus mainframe; this makes the convenience of use poor. Further, there has been a problem that during the carrying out of an edition of a job ticket, the operation section is occupied by a user, which makes it impossible for another user to operate. On the contrary, when the operation section is occupied by another user, an edition of a job ticket cannot be carried out, which brings about a possibility of a job being practiced with the output conditions unchanged. Further, during the carrying out of an edition operation of a job ticket, it happens also a case, for example, where an image formation operation is temporarily interrupted, which lowers the working efficiency of the image forming apparatus.
It is an object of this invention to provide an image forming apparatus having an improved operational performance.